Greencastle, Ind. - DePauw (19-9) opens NCAA Division III Championship play on Friday, March 6, at Carroll College (22-5) in Waukesha, Wis., in a first-round game with tipoff scheduled for 7:45 p.m. CST. The other first-round game features University of Wisconsin-La Crosse (18-9) against LaGrange (20-9) at 5:15 p.m. CST. The winners will square off on Saturday at 7:45 p.m. CST. Ticket information will be announced later.
DePauw earned automatic qualification into the Division III postseason after winning the North Coast Athletic Conference Tournament on Saturday with a 64-59 win over John Carroll., The fourth-seed Tigers knocked off three top-10 teams in an 11-day stretch capped off by a 75-59 victory over sixth-ranked Denison last Thursday and Saturday's victory over the 10th-ranked Blue Streaks.
Senior guard
Riley Mont leads the Tigers with 14.7 points and 2.4 steals per contest and has hit a team-high 46 3-pointers. Junior forward
Olivia Hart follows with 13.5 points and a team-high 7.2 rebounds, while junior guard
Tori Allen leads the way with 3.0 assists each contest.
The Tigers are making their 25th overall NCAA appearance and third straight and enter the postseason with a 35-22 all-time record. DePauw won Division III titles in 2007 and 2013 and finished third in 2002.
Kris Huffman is in her 33rd season as head coach with a 760-164 record. Her 24 tournament appearances rank in a tie for second in Division III history.
Carroll earned one of the 21 at-large berths in the 64-team field after Saturday's 74-70 overtime home loss to Illinois Wesleyan in the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin Tournament championship game.
Senior forward Natalie Gricius leads the Pioneers and ranks fifth in Division III with 22.2 points per game. She also grabs a team-high 6.1 rebounds per contest and connects on 56.4 percent of her field goal tries. Senior guard Emilie Wizner follows with 15.9 points per outing and ranks 10th in the nation with 76 3-pointers made while shooting 40.0 percent from beyond the arc. Junior guard Julia Lokker rounds out the double-figure scorers with 13.8 points each contest. Katie Barger dishes out 3.7 assists each game. The Pioneers rank third in Division III by shooting 45.7 percent from the field.
Carroll is making its seventh NCAA appearance and first since 2004. The Pioneers are 2-9 in postseason play. Head coach Lindsay Schultz is 133-113 in her 10th season at Carroll.
The teams have met just once with Carroll taking a 65-39 win over the Tigers in a tournament at Ohio Northern.
